Yesterday was international book day, did you noticed? It's at this date because oddly it's the birthday of Cervantes, Shakespeare and Garcilaso de la Vega ... good day to be born! Books have brought us the most incredible stories, real, mythical, fictional, they never end and are available for us to turn their pages. Although the books change their physical appearance, colors, sizes and even use applied technology, they still enchant and teach us, that sure was a good invention. I tried to think yesterday which was the book that had most influenced me and I couldn't decide on one, especially since I stood before the great bookshelf we have and jumped from one book to another, saying, "this one! ... no, this! ... but how good is this one ... "And so! Impossible.

We could talk about some current trendy book or some literature classic and read them, but I'll leave that for another time. Today I wanted to tell you about a book I read in the summer, that was a happy experiment. Last year I saw an opinion piece in a newspaper that said there were many people who were amazed that Father Alberto Hurtado would walk around with a book other than the Bible under his arm, even less if it wasn't religion related, which was all bent and wrinkled. We're talking about the man who changed the social vision of Chile forever, with nothing but generosity and love for others, and is now a Saint. Probably read it every day, so I became curious and went looking for it.

It has an awful title: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, although it is much better and more than that slogan. It's from 1936 and almost needs no corrections to be current. It was born as the textbook to teach a sociology class and unwittingly became the basis for an entire academy, franchise seminars and the beginning of self-help books, but that's really what interested me the least of it. The introduction says that it's an essential book, that must be underlined and return to at least once a month, for checking ourselves. I though it was funny, even pedantic at first, but when I was on page 15 I realized it was true.

People with good intentions, who ever they may be, want to improve and grow in life, hopefully making everyone around them to do the same and this book has a number of very well explained and full of examples principles to achieve this by focusing on how we relate with others. As this is something we all do all the time, it applies to being parents, to work, to the daily contact with people we meet. It applies in a practical way all these ideas that we had and those things we admire in other people, setting clear goals and objectives. I recommend it one hundred percent, to think about and underline, crossing it with all those things that we believe in life. For example, the first two principles are: not to criticize or condemn; honestly and sincerely appreciate others. Based on this, it starts showing how being considered gets us far.

Bonus Track: Hoy es otro día, el #fashionrevolutionday, día en que se recuerda la tragedia en que murieron cientos de trabajadores en el derrumbe de una fábrica de ropa en Bangladesh. La idea es hacernos pensar sobre el origen de nuestra ropa, sobre cómo la cuidamos y el respeto que tenemos por los que la hacen, usando alguna prenda hoy por el revés o con el "hecho en" a la vista, qué opinan? / Today is another day, #fashionrevolutionday, the one that remembers the tragedy in which hundreds of workers were killed in the collapse of a clothing factory in Bangladesh. The idea is to make us think about the origin of our clothes, about how we take care of them and the respect we have for those who made them, using a garment today inside out or with the "made in" tag at plain sight. What do you think about it?